In augmented reality systems, augmentations are output to a user to alter their experience of a real world environment. Often an augmented reality (AR) system will superimpose images such as shapes or icons on top of a real world view captured by a camera or else seen directly through a see-through head mounted display (HMD).
Sports broadcasters frequently use augmented reality to represent information to viewers which is visible in the real world. For instance with American football, the broadcasting company frequently augments the recorded image of the real world view with the line of scrimmage and first down markers on the field. The line and markers do not exist in reality, but rather they are virtual augmentations that are added to the real world view. In order to accurately place the augmentations with respect to the real world view, the cameras and systems for recording the gameplay are set up with what may be referred to as “bore siting,” which involves careful alignment of cameras with the playing field so the locations of both the camera and the field are known within a high degree of accuracy (high confidence). This helps ensure that the first down markers, for instance, are not shown 10 feet away from where they actually belong.
To “augment” the “reality” of the real world in a convincing and realistic manner, there should be some relationship between the augmentation and objects which are visible in the real world image. In general, an AR system must have some understanding of location of the AR system's camera and the objects within view of the camera in order to provide an augmentation to the user which has a meaningful relationship with the user's real world surroundings.